The General's Deadly Game
by Ryiinn
Summary: Jet gets a mysterious message in the middle of the night and the Bebop crew is sent on a secret ISSP mission to harness a madman! Rated for mild language. There will eventually be a S/F undertone ;)
1. A Rude Awakening

"JET PERSON! JET PERSON! MESSAGE! MESSAGE FOR JET PERSON!"  
  
The singsong voice resonated through the sleepy corridors and permeated the walls to the sleeping quarters. Soon the surprised snorts and huffs of the rudely awakened crew were replaced with grumbles, groans, and eventually snarls. The young girl seemed unaware of the change in attitude and continued to skip down the hallway, her red hair flaming and flying wildly and her bare feet hammering out a drumbeat on the metal of the floor. Following closely behind her was her canine companion, his stumpy little legs scurrying as fast as they could move to keep up.  
  
"JET PERSON!" The girl began to sing her song once more, nearing her destination. "JET."  
  
"Damn it Edward! What the hell is wrong with you! It's four in the morning and I just got to sleep!" A disheveled and extremely angry woman stuck her head out of a door and glared at the girl with a look that would have withered any average person. However, the girl simply dropped placed her hands on the floor and bounced towards her.  
  
"Morning morning Faye-Faye! Jet Person has a message and it says urgent durgent," Ed sang cheerily.  
  
"Don't give me that 'morning' bullshit Ed. It's far from it and you need to go to bed and stop waking everybody up. Give Jet the message in the morning. As in after 10 in the morning morning!" Faye glared at the child and ran her fingers through her tangled purple mane. Adjusting her green robe with her free hand, she opened her door and stepped into the dim hall. "I'm going to the bathroom. You'd better not be here when I get back or else."  
  
"Or else what?" A sleepy voice drifted down the corridor, followed by the sound of slapping feet. "What's going on here, Faye? What's with all of the commotion?"  
  
Faye glared angrily at the groggy man before her, clad only in sweatpants. His rumpled appearance and glazed eyes did nothing but annoy her and she snapped, "It wasn't me Lunkhead! I just got to sleep and Ed decided that some stupid message was worth running around and screaming like a damn animal over. I'm the one that tried to shut her up!"  
  
The man scratched his wild mop of green hair and looked curiously at the oblivious girl who was now seated on the floor at his feet growling at the dog. Faye's emerald eyes glinted dangerously as she watched Ed play. "Damn it Ed! Stop playing with Ein and get off the floor! You woke us up so it had better be one hell of a message."  
  
"Hey you two! What's going on out there?" The third member of the crew lumbered towards the group in the hall, one hand rubbing his eye and one hand gripping a pistol. "Can't a man get a few hours of sleep? It's bad enough that I had to stay up practically all night fixing your mangled ships.can't you go four damn hours without bickering? Spike? Faye? Can't you?"  
  
Faye's mouth dropped open furiously and Spike shifted his puzzled look towards the rapidly approaching man. "Why you! We..." Faye began to speak, but was interrupted by the sudden movement of Ed.  
  
"Jet Person! Tomato has a message message for youuuu!" She bounded out from between Faye and Spike and ran over to Jet, latching herself onto his leg and yanking on his sweatpants.  
  
Jet glanced questioningly at the two adults standing behind the gleeful child, and reached one hand down to secure his slipping waistband.  
  
"So it wasn't you two after all," he mused. His eyes twinkled slightly as he noticed Faye's miffed expression and he leaned forward to detach Ed from his leg. "This had better be a good one, Ed," he warned.  
  
"It is is is!" she sang as she grabbed Jet's large hand and attempted to drag him off towards the living room. Ein yipped and scurried along behind the retreating pair, his toenails clicking on the metal of the floor as he ran.  
  
Faye turned and stared at Spike. "You know," she said harshly, "you COULD have given me some help there rather than just standing and staring. I'm not exactly in the condition to be dealing with yelling children."  
  
"Like I am?" he asked sarcastically. "You know the three things I hate."  
  
Faye snorted. "Yeah, yeah I know. Animals, kids, and women with attitudes. Well, this woman would have less of an attitude if you wouldn't have just stood there staring stupidly." She whirled on her heel and stormed towards the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.  
  
~~~@@@~~~@@@~~~@@@~~~@@@~~~@@@~~~@@@~~~@@@~~~@@@~ Hello all This is my first story here on FF, and I promise that more is on the way. Please read and review and tell me what you all think! I would love feedback! 


	2. Faye's Surprise

Spike stared at the closed bathroom door and shook his head. The woman was not right- it had been evident to him for a long time now, but each of her outbursts seemed to reinforce the thought in his mind. He had never met another person who was so prone to violent fits of anger and rage. Even Vicious, insane as he was, still managed to tame his emotions. 'Maybe Faye isn't crazy,' he mused. 'Maybe the rest of us are crazy.' Spike pondered this thought for a brief moment and shook his head of the notion. Whether she was crazy or not was irrelevant. The fact that he even bothered to wonder what made her hot head tick frightened him. 'Maybe she IS crazy and she's bringing me down with her.'  
  
He shook his head and ambled into the living room, where Ed and Jet were huddled over a glowing screen. Leaning over the seemingly ancient gold couch, he reached between two seat cushions and withdrew the hand which now held his essence of life and sanity- his nicotine. Lazily, he drew a single stick from his pack and lit it with a flick of his lighter. Breathing in the smoky calm he moved to stand silently behind Jet and Ed.  
  
"So, you say it's from Bob?" Jet peered over Ed's shoulder, eager to catch a glimpse of the message sent to him by one of his closest friends. Bob was a man of few words, even when they worked together on Ganymede, so when he sent a message you could bet that something important was in the air.  
  
"Aye aye Jet Person! It's from Bob bob a dob," she agreed, typing furiously. "Strange!" Ed lifted one eyebrow at the screen and pushed her goggles to the top of her head. She looked up at a puzzled Jet and grinned. "Message for Jet person must be important! It's encrypted erypted!"  
  
"Encrypted?" Spike leaned down, the mention of the heightened security catching his interest. "Why would Bob send you an encrypted message, Jet?"  
  
Jet scratched his head and thought for a moment. "I really couldn't imagine why he would do that."  
  
Ed was already back at work, typing like a madman and concentrating intently at the task in front of her. Jet smiled at her determination, noticing the corner of tongue that was stubbornly jutting from the corner of her now tight lips. Whatever Bob had sent him was obviously not meant for anyone else's eyes. It was a good thing that Radical Edward herself was a member of his crew.  
  
"Hey! What's going on out here?" Faye's feminine voice drifted across the room as she walked towards the cluster of people surrounding Ed's computer. "Am I missing anything?"  
  
Spike glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and returned his gaze towards Ed's work. Jet didn't look up, his eyes eagerly awaiting sight of his message and Ed's fingers continued to fly over the keyboard as if no one had spoken. Faye, a bit miffed at the lack of response, walked over towards Spike and looked over his shoulder. As she thoughtfully towel-dried her damp violet locks, she leaned in to see what Ed was so avidly trying to accomplish. Her eyes followed the flurry of green on Ed's terminal and a sudden dawn of realization washed over her.  
  
"Holy shit! That's class 5 encryption! I haven't seen anything as secure as that for a heck of a long time!" 


	3. Faye's Vision

Ed suddenly stopped her keyboard calisthenics and pushed her goggles onto her head, looking curiously at Faye, who now stood with her hand over her mouth and a shocked expression on her face. Jet was staring at her with a similar expression, and even Spike had a vague shadow of wonder crossing his face.   
  
"Faye Faye knows about class 5 encryption? How does Faye Faye know about this? It's the most secure encryption in the whooolle galaxy!" As she spoke, Faye's eyes welled up with tears.  
  
"Faye! What is it?" Jet snapped out of his initial shock and surprise and leaned over to the stunned woman.  
  
Faye stood motionless, staring at the ground with wide eyes. Her hands trembled as she balled them into fists at her sides, and her face blanched white. The towel she had been holding fell to the ground, and her semi-damp hair stuck to her face like wet spaghetti. When she finally looked up, she made eye contact with a partially startled Spike before whirling her shaking body around and running back towards the bathroom. Spike jumped at the sheer terror in her eyes, his own orbs widening to match her terrified gaze. As she ran from the room, he felt his chest tighten.   
  
'I've never seen her like this before', he thought to himself. 'What could have scared her so badly? And how did she know what Ed was doing? She's always stayed away from the tomato.'   
  
Glancing at the gaping Jet and Ed, he nodded and hurried to the bathroom. "Faye!" he called through the metal of the door. "Are you alright?"  
  
Faye lay on the bathroom floor in a huddled heap. Her mouth stung from the taste of bile that had involuntarily sprung from her churning stomach, and her hair hung limply across her pale face. She shuddered to think of the feelings that she had experienced in the living room and mentally cursed herself for reacting so harshly in front of the rest of the crew.  
  
'They'll just think I'm crazy old Faye again' she thought sadly. 'The crazy shrew woman with no memories. The crazy bitch who remembers things at the most inopportune times and ruins everything by her stupid outbursts.'  
  
She closed her eyes as she tried to drown out the visions that flooded her mind. Crawling to her feet, she staggered over to the sink and plugged the drain. Filling the basin, she plunged her face into the icy cool of the water. She lifted her face up and stared at her reflection in the mirror.  
  
_The water dripped down her face in streams. Her ice cold hands trembled as she struggled to hold the device before her. 'Come on Valentine' she thought as she fumbled with a small switch on the object.  
  
The switch gave way and a small compartment opened, exposing three strands of wire with white plastic ends. She grabbed the red wire and held it up to a switch plate on the metal door ahead of her. Cursing, she fumbled with another lever on the plate, her numb hands uselessly slipping and sliding over its smooth surface. Angrily, she slammed her finger into the switch, finally causing it to give way to another compartment, similar to the one open on the device in her hands. Faye examined the wires within the plate, and gingerly took a black wire in her hand. Matching her wires with those of the plate, she pressed a button on her device. 'Come on, damn it.' She grumbled. The small device suddenly hummed to life, illuminating her face in a soft glow. Smiling for the first time that night, she concentrated on the flashing characters on the tiny display.   
  
'Damn, this is a bitchy hack! What the hell are they protecting in here that is that important? Don't tell me a warehouse is worth this class 5 shit…' Faye swore to herself as her finger flew over the small touchpad. As she pored over the lines of data, she became vaguely aware of the distant hum of a motor. 'Shit! Not now not now…' Faye's efforts became more frantic as she scrambled to break the code before whatever or whoever was approaching reached her. She thought of the strength of the encryption and guessed that someone would be very unhappy at her attempts to break their security.   
  
As she worked faster, she could hear the hum of the motor grow louder and louder and eventually the sound of crunching gravel and splashing water was added to the noise. 'Damn it come ON!' she swore, oblivious to the pain of her now-cracked fingertips continuously grinding on the rough keypad. As her blood mixed with the rain, her heart grew heavy with fear. She could now see the faint glow of approaching headlights illuminating the wall in front of her.  
  
'Great' she thought. 'What a quaint way to die…' Suddenly, she heard a long tone and a faint click. Gasping in relief, she quickly unhooked her equipment and swung open the door. Stepping within, she froze at the sight…_  
  
"Faye! Are you alright?"  
  
Spike's voice rang out from behind the door, snapping Faye away from her vision. She shuddered violently and opened her mouth to call out to him, but the words seemed to be frozen in her throat. Gasping for air, Faye slumped against the counter and slid to the floor. Her memories faded and all went black.  
  
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It's a cliffie!! More updates soon…I promise. Please let me know what you think ;) 


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